Nigeria betting growth raises case for unified safeguards
Nigeria’s fast-growing online betting market is exposing gaps in player protection as regulators try to build a more coordinated system after years of fragmented oversight, according to Oluwafisayo Oke, chief executive of GambleAlert, a Nigerian responsible gambling organisation.
Speaking to SiGMA News, Oke said responsible gambling in Nigeria remains at an early stage, even as online betting attracts sharply rising levels of consumer attention.
The scale of the market is already considerable. Nigerian newspaper The Guardian Nigeria reported in December 2025 that the country’s online gambling market had reached an estimated NGN5.6tn ($3.87bn). Blask, an analytics company that tracks online gambling demand, points to further momentum: its Blask Index (a proprietary measure of user interest, engagement and player attention in iGaming markets) for Nigeria’s online betting and gambling market rose 58.94 per cent year on year, driven largely by online betting, which increased 63.75 per cent.
The underlying demographics help explain why operators are paying close attention. Blask puts Nigeria’s population at 236.7 million, with a median age of just 19.3 and 115.5 million internet users, a combination that gives betting brands a large, young and increasingly connected audience.
States take greater control
Oke said Nigeria’s regulatory structure has long been complicated by the role of individual states.
“There has always been a fragmented system of regulation in Nigeria, with 36 states plus the FCT,” he explained.
Nigeria’s gambling oversight has long been split between federal and state authorities. Oke said the regulatory picture had shifted following a Supreme Court judgment that, in his view, gave states greater authority over gaming regulation. “There used to be the National Lottery Regulatory Commission, but following the Supreme Court judgment, the states now have more power to regulate the sector,” he said.
For operators, a state-led system can make licensing more complex. For responsible gambling, the problem is broader. Self-exclusion, affordability checks, intervention systems and safer gambling standards depend on coverage. If a player can move from one operator or jurisdiction to another without friction, protection becomes weaker.
Oke pointed to the Federation of State Gaming Regulators of Nigeria, or FSGRN, as an attempt to bring greater order to the market.
“Currently, there is the Federation of State Gaming Regulators of Nigeria, or FSGRN, a coalition of most of the country’s gaming regulators,” he said.
The body’s licensing model is significant because it could reduce duplication across states and create a more consistent compliance framework.
“They have one licensing structure, meaning that if you obtain a licence under it, you do not have to go to other states to be licensed,” Oke added.
For player protection, the importance lies in what can be attached to that structure. If licensing becomes more unified, safer gambling rules can also become less fragmented.
“That means the frameworks, as well as player protection policies, can also be unified under this regime,” he said.
Self-exclusion moves from policy to infrastructure
According to Oke, the Nigerian industry is still learning how to put responsible gambling into practice. Betting has been present for years, but formal player protection is a newer discipline.
“Player protection in Nigeria is still very nascent,” he said. “While the gaming industry is about 15 or 16 years old, responsible gambling, in practical terms, is still relatively new.”
Many African gambling markets have expanded faster than the systems designed to monitor harm. Nigeria’s scale makes the issue more urgent. A young population, rising internet use and rapid betting engagement create conditions for growth, but also for higher exposure to gambling risk.
Oke said some resistance from operators was expected, but he also noted that parts of the market are beginning to adopt harm-reduction tools, “especially self-exclusion,” he said.
One of the clearest examples is Lagos State’s responsible gambling work, especially the SafePlay scheme, which Oke described as a unified self-exclusion portal.
“The Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority rolled out the SafePlay initiative, a unified self-exclusion portal,” Oke said. “If you self-exclude through SafePlay, you do not need to self-exclude separately with each gaming operator. As long as the operator is licensed within that region, you are automatically self-excluded.”
Funding remains the weak point
Oke said Nigeria’s regulators face a familiar problem: policies can be written faster than they can be enforced.
“No matter how beautiful your policies are, they need to be enforced, they need to be implemented,” he said.
That is a particular issue in a country of Nigeria’s size. Its population is spread across a large federal system, with different state-level authorities and varying levels of regulatory capacity. Even a strong responsible gambling framework will struggle if regulators lack the people, funding and technology to audit operators and enforce standards.
“When regulators do not have enough capacity, in terms of funding and resources, to cover a country as large as Nigeria, you find lapses here and there,” Oke said.
A public health test for African gambling
Oke argued that responsible gambling in Nigeria, and across Africa more broadly, cannot be treated only as a compliance issue. He said gambling harm should be viewed through a public health lens.
“For responsible gaming to work anywhere, it has to be evidence-driven and treated as a public health issue,” he said.
That approach would require data-sharing, treatment pathways, operator accountability and stronger links between regulators, health professionals and civil society groups.
“We have to recognise that gambling is potentially harmful,” Oke said. “When we understand that the product being sold is potentially harmful, it forces us to look beyond revenue.”
Nigeria already has the ingredients that attract gambling operators: scale, youth, internet access and rising betting engagement. What remains less developed is the national architecture for preventing harm.
Oke said that work cannot be left to one part of the sector.
“It requires all stakeholders, regulators, operators, healthcare providers and NGOs such as GambleAlert, to work together to ensure there are no gaps in player protection,” he concluded.
Stay ahead of iGaming’s biggest stories with SiGMA’s Top 10 News countdown. The world’s biggest iGaming community brings you weekly insights and subscriber-only offers. Join HERE today.
